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Journalist predicts two West Ham players will leave for combined £160m
Predicting the future in football is a fool’s errand, and even more so with West Ham United. The bizarre nature of the club makes it nigh on impossible.
Who knows where the Hammers will be in five years’ time? Will the same owners still be there? Will the club still be in the Premier League? Will David Moyes still be in charge?
These are things that no-one can guess, yet there are still plenty of people who give it a good, old college try.
They know that they’re not going to be successful, but now that we’re into the year 2020, the chance to predict what the Irons will look like in 2025 has proved too tempting for one journalist.
Football London’s Hammers correspondent Sam Inkersole made an attempt on Thursday to guess what the east London side’s squad would look like in five years’ time.
Out of all the bizarre guesstimates he made, two stand out most vividly. Inkersole feels that two West Ham stars will be sold for a combined £160million.
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The first, unsurprisingly, is Declan Rice. Inkersole believes that the England international will eventually move to Manchester United for £100million.
Meanwhile, the journalist has also claimed that young winger Grady Diangana will seal a £60million transfer to Spanish champions Barcelona.
Could these two exits happen?
The Rice one certainly seems feasible. It’s well known that Man United have been chasing the defensive midfielder for quite some time now.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side still have massive holes in the centre of midfield and, if we assume Paul Pogba leaves Old Trafford, Rice would be an obvious candidate to fill the Frenchman’s boots.
That wouldn’t be a like-for-like replacement, of course, but with Scott McTominay and Bruno Fernandes also there, Rice could slot in nicely.
As for Diangana to Barca, come on now. The youngster has impressed dramatically out on loan at West Bromwich Albion this season, but he doesn’t scream Barcelona potential by any means.
In other West Ham news, a former England international has claimed that one of these sales could solve a big issue for the club.